Subject: Re: IETF Sub-IP area: request for input

From: RJ Atkinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 4 Dec 2002 12:18:37 -0500

If the SUB-IP Area is to continue after the Spring 2003 IETF,
then it should have its own Area Directors appointed by the Nomcom.

I'll note that the IESG is free to re-organise itself at any time
and that the IESG has done so on occasion.  This means that even
if SUB-IP ADs were appointed by Nomcom this year, the area is not
necessarily "permanent" for all time in the future.

I am indifferent on the question of whether the SUB-IP Area
should continue or not.

Ran
[email-masked]

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From: Fred Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 04 Dec 2002 10:20:16 -0800

It is my sense, perhaps jaundiced, that when the optical stuff came to the 
fore, the ATM folks of the world renamed ATM "MPLS" and decided that they 
would work on ATM whatever it was called and wherever the work was being 
done. Much of the sub-ip effort has been, in my view, literally that or has 
been repeatedly challenged to become that.

 From what you said, it sounds like a large number, perhaps half, of the 
working groups are ready to complete within the coming year. There are 
likely to be two continuing working groups, ccamp and mpls. I'm not sure 
what the difference between those columns is: I think you're telling me 
that there are one or more working groups that will not complete soon and 
which are non-essential.

 From my perspective, that tells me that we are really talking about two 
working groups a year from now - the rest either will have closed 
themselves or could be closed by IESG action. If that's what we are talking 
about, I would suggest planning quite literally to close the area a year 
from now, and leave it in status quo until then. I would also suggest 
aggressively managing the working groups that will not survive the change 
to ensure that they are either moribund or complete their work.

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From: "Tony Hain" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 4 Dec 2002 12:46:08 -0800

I was in the room in Atlanta, and the consensus sounded more like 'leave
us alone' than 'there is a clear need for a focused area'. IMHO, the
area should be closed as it is not clear it has provided any real value
(despite the abstract claim of DP4). While DP5 suggests there is no
compelling reason to break it up, I contend that there was no compelling
reason to create it in the first place. As DP3 notes, there is a
continuing need for close coordination with the original areas. At the
same time, it is not clear there has ever been a need for close
coordination between the WGs in the sub-IP area. By the Spring meeting,
the area should be closed along with WGs that don't fit elsewhere. 

Tony

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From: Paul Hoffman / IMC <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 9 Dec 2002 15:20:48 -0800

A few more issues for this discussion:

- The statement that some of the WGs in the SubIP area are about to 
finish up may be deceptive. Some of the WGs are accepting new 
proposals on wide-ranging topics. Some of the proposals that are 
within the charters are bogged down in personal/political hassles 
that are only apparent in the hallways, not on the mailing lists. In 
other words, they are similar to many WGs in other areas of the IETF.

- So far, every message has miscounted the number of WGs in the area 
by one. PWE3, even though it is in Transport, is very clearly a SubIP 
WG. I have yet to speak to anyone who could clearly say why PWE3 is 
not part of SubIP (the fact that it "affects" transport is silly: all 
SubIP technologies will affect transport). And it is nowhere near 
finishing.

- There are other WGs that are not in SubIP but have many of the 
characteristics that people in this thread have been talking about. 
There is a real question about why is the IETf working on IPoverFoo 
for any given Foo. The charters for IPCDN and IPOIB and IPORPR 
indicate that they are covering layer 2 technologies carrying IP. If 
IPO is part of SubIP, these should be as well.

- The "wait for some of the WGs to wind down before acting" 
suggestions are based on the theory that the WGs will wind down. It 
is odd to hear that from people with lots of IETF experience.

The SubIP area experiment should be terminated because it didn't 
reach any appreciable results in the allotted time. Further, the IESG 
should decide for all of the WGs currently in what is really SubIP 
(that is: ccamp, gsmp, ipcdn, ipo, ipoib, iporpr, mpls, ppvpn, pwe3, 
tewg), which area is actually appropriate for each WG. It's likely 
that the answer will be "well, it doesn't really fit anywhere 
sensibly in the current IETF area structure".

That's a pretty significant answer. Fortunately, there is a solution, 
which is to disband the WGs and let the industry trade associations 
that are dealing with the topics take over the work. The MPLS Forum 
is an obvious place for the MPLS-related work. ipo could go to the 
Optical Internetworking Forum, iorpr can go to the Resilient Packet 
Ring Alliance, and so on. These are organizations that have funded 
secretariats, existing technical committees, and so on.

Keeping these WGs in the IETF has a real cost, namely on the time of 
the IESG and the IETF Secretariat. It is probably better to let 
groups whose primary focus is the named technology do the work.

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--Internet Mail Consortium

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From: Lars Eggert <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 09 Dec 2002 17:51:20 -0800

Paul Hoffman / IMC wrote:

> proposals on wide-ranging topics. 

This is an important point. An example is PPVPN, which is chartered to 
work on specification of requirements, with new protocol work being 
explicitly out-of-scope.

However, some current PPVPN IDs (and several more targetted at it) read 
more like solution documents for various existing vendor schemes, 
specifying packet headers and MIBs. Another indication is that those IDs 
  aim at standards track, whereas requirements documents would more 
naturally fall under Informational or maybe BCP.

So PPVPN at least seems quite happy to go out-of-scope, and is thus 
unlikely to stick to their given timeframe.

Lars

PS: I support 1/ - close SUB-IP and migrate the WGs.
-- 
Lars Eggert <[email-masked]>           USC Information Sciences Institute

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From: Eric Rosen <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Dec 2002 11:09:46 -0500

Lars> An example  is PPVPN, which is  chartered to work  on specification of
Lars> requirements, with new protocol work being explicitly out-of-scope. 

Lars> However, some  current PPVPN  IDs (and several  more targetted  at it)
Lars> read more like solution documents

From the PPVPN charter: 

        This  working  group  is  responsible  for  defining  and
        specifying  a limited  number  of sets  of solutions  for
        supporting provider-provisioned  virtual private networks
        (PPVPNs).

It is  somewhat difficult to define  and specify a  solution without writing
something that "reads like a solution document". 

Lars> for various existing vendor schemes, 

From the PPVPN charter:

        The working group is  expected to consider at least three
        specific approaches

Various "existing vendor schemes" are then explicitly mentioned. 

Lars> new protocol  work being explicitly out-of-scope  [but PPVPN documents
Lars> are] specifying packet headers and MIBs

In some cases the PPVPN docs do have protocol work in them which needs to be
moved to  another working group.  But  I don't think  this is a case  of the
group  going  beyond its  charter,  it's just  a  matter  of the  individual
contributors getting the time to divide up the documents properly.  In other
cases, the PPVPN docs just specify  how existing protocols are to be used to
achieve various functions.  

I don't think defining a MIB counts as "new protocol work".